Alternate
by Salazarfalcon
Summary: Yuri meets Estelle a thousand times and lives a thousand lives, and he only understands why with a plunger in his hands and stitches in his eyebrow, the girl who has to be crazy burying her hands in his collar. And everything resets again.


Alternate

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Summary: Yuri meets Estelle a thousand times and lives a thousand lives, and he only understands why with a plunger in his hands and stitches in his eyebrow, the girl who has to be crazy burying her hands in his collar. And everything resets again.

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Disclaimer: Nope nope nope.

* * *

AN: Yeah, okay, so this is weird. I will own up to that completely. Do I have any shame at all? Nope. This started as a simple 5+1 fic and then it escalated into something that is actually pretty weird, and yeah. I like it, though, even though it kind of gave my brain fits.

* * *

Yuri falls and the world restarts.

* * *

Yuri never meets Estelle.

He walks down the streets lined with skyscrapers and miserable people with their miserable lives, paved with sirens and scum and grime. Lined with wonderful things too but all Yuri can see is the grey.

Yuri never meets Estelle because his head's down when he's walking and he misses her entirely. She's got her nose buried in a book and she doesn't notice him either. Who would? Yuri's no one special, just a shop boy who works at a record store and he's got no business paying attention to girls like her.

Yuri walks down the streets and looks into the puddles on the pavement.

Day after day after day, it's all the same. It's always been the same and it'll always be the same just with different players. Yuri's always Yuri, though.

Yuri never meets Estelle because he keeps his head down, even when behind him she stops, shakes her head, and looks back. She stiffens like she's remembered that she's forgotten something but she doesn't know what, but Yuri doesn't see.

A part of him hears the screaming but the rest of him keeps walking.

It's always going to be the same.

_Reboot, rewind, replay._

* * *

Yuri meets Estelle the night he runs over her dog. It's a complete accident and it's the first thing out of her mouth, even as she's crying and numbly holding a leash with nothing on the other end.

It's raining, she says, and it is. Ioder slipped his collar and got away from her, and he did. Yuri tried his best to avoid the hit and he did and he curbed his motorcycle in the process. It doesn't change the fact that Yuri just killed her dog through no one's fault but fate's and he feels lower than low because of it. Probably about as bad as Estelle, who keeps looking at the unmoving body at her feet that's getting steadily wetter and steadily colder.

Yuri doesn't know what to say except that he's sorry and he realizes how uncharacteristic his babbled apologies are later, when he has the chance to sit down and _think_. Estelle kneels down in the water and sheds her jacket, spreading it out over her pet and using it to bundle him up and scoop him into her arms. Yuri lets her do it alone until she turns away and scrubs fiercely at her eyes.

"It's okay," she says helplessly like she doesn't believe it and Yuri thinks that only a crazy person would be stupid enough to take her for truth for a second. "It's okay, it wasn't anyone's fault, it's okay, it's okay."

Yuri recognizes the attempt to _make it so_ out of sheer strength of will but he can't let her force herself to believe that or to lie so badly, and he takes the two steps necessary to stand next to her. God, he feels like an asshole.

"It's not okay," he says gently, "It's not okay. It's not supposed to be okay."

And he supposes that that's all it takes to break her lies and break her down and Estelle starts to cry again, hot and hard and uncontrolled as she clutches fabric and fur to her chest even as Yuri drapes his jacket over her shoulders.

The streets are dark and empty despite the relatively early hour and Yuri picks up his bike from where he set it down upon realizing, holy shit, he actually hit something.

It's pretty morbid but he lets Estelle keep her burden even as they find an overhang so he can look up a clinic that does cremations or burials. It's not hard to find one that's not far and still open and Yuri doesn't just give her directions to get there, he walks her there himself.

Yuri can't tell whether she's still crying by the time they get there but they _do_ both look like a pair of drowned rats. One heartbroken one and one immeasurably guilty one, and they get a lot of stares in the office. Estelle shrinks down in her sear and curls in on herself; Yuri straightens, stiff and unyielding as if his spine's been melted down and replaced with lead.

This might actually be the worst, he thinks. He was supposed to be meeting Flynn tonight; he was supposed to play _Assassin's Creed_ and eat junk food, not hit some poor girl's dog with his bike. Yuri sends Flynn a text but not the details, just that he doesn't think he's going to make it. He's distracted with that and doesn't notice until a few moments later that Estelle's on the phone with someone. Rather, that Estelle's getting _off_ the phone with someone.

They sit in silence until Yuri's phone goes off. Flynn's prompter than usual. Shorter than usual, too, because all that the message says is _K. Stuff on my end too. _Flynn's wordier than that, and Yuri can remember off the top of his head messages that had half the content with twice the words.

It's when Estelle's filling out the forms that Yuri suddenly remembers that he hasn't actually told her his name. He can count on one hand the number of people he's apologized to but he's managed to somehow not introduce himself until now.

He does, then, and startled green eyes flick upwards to meet his.

"Estellise," she replies quietly, and doesn't look less devastated so much as she looks warmer and more human.

The vet's a nice guy, Yuri decides when they finally meet him. Sensitive, and he doesn't seem surprised or like he minds when Estelle hiccup-sobs her way through her story while all the while ignoring Yuri's attempt to accept responsibility entirely. He also doesn't seem to mind when she demands that Ioder be cremated with her coat, her quiet explanation being that she doesn't want him to ever feel alone even in death.

There's a wait, too long of a one. Estelle ignores the boundaries of uncomfortable chair arms to sag against Yuri, her weight warm and solid at his side.

"He was just a puppy," she mumbles. Yuri slings an arm around her shoulders and lets her do what she wants. It's the least he can do and he might be an asshole but _he is not that kind of asshole_, thank you, and no matter what anyone says, he stills feels at least somewhat responsible.

"Do you need a ride home?" Yuri asks when they're walking out. He's not sure how comfortable she'd be with his bike but it's not right to not at least offer. Estelle shakes her head.

"Thank you, but I already called someone. He should be here soon."

"Good," Yuri responds, "As long as there's someone."

That someone is made all too clear when they walk back out into the lobby.

"…Yuri?!"

"Flynn?" Yuri sputters, "The _actual hell_…?"

Estelle blinks.

"I…had no clue that you knew each other at all," she says. In any other circumstances, Yuri thinks that she'd more likely be bouncing when she said it rather than with the mild, subdued tone she uses now. Flynn who actually knows her seems to agree with Yuri's silent assessment and bustles forward, taking her bag. Yuri doesn't know Estelle but he knows Flynn, knows that he doesn't like what he sees by the way his jaw clenches tightly.

Yuri's honestly pretty surprised that Flynn's managed to keep her a secret; he's got a shit poker face and Yuri can read him like a book. What he reads right now that Flynn is dying to know what the hell's going on and what the hell Yuri has to do with it at all, and probably another what-the-hell just to make the full set. He won't though, even though he wears a look that promises a thorough interrogation later.

Yuri fights the urge to groan.

Goody.

Well, Yuri will be doing some interrogating of his own, because bros do not keep girls a secret from bros. Even if she's not his girlfriend (which she's not, that much is obvious; Flynn's poker face really _is_ shit and Yuri asked him about girls last week), it's not cool that he didn't say anything about her at all.

Especially not before Yuri royally fucked everything up.

He _has_ a dog and he can't imagine how he'd be feeling if someone just came out of nowhere and hit Repede. Even if he knew full well that it was an accident , Yuri doesn't know if he'd even be able to stay in the same room as that person, much less forgive them, much less accept help from them.

He doesn't know if he'd be able to look them in the face without killing them.

So either Estelle got the poker face that Flynn missed out on or she just doesn't handle things the way he does.

That much is made obvious when instead of simply turning to leave and never looking back, Estelle takes a step towards Yuri and, after a moment of hesitation, flings her arms around his neck and squeezes until he almost can't breathe. He's so startled by the whole thing that he can't even think to return it until the girl's pressing her nose into his neck and he understands that it's not just for his benefit or a gesture of forgiveness. He understands and wraps his arms around her to squeeze her back.

It's weird, he thinks, hugging anyone but Flynn.

Flynn, who looks really confused and kind of annoyed.

Yuri lets go of Estelle and she retreats a step, the sides of her lips tilting upwards for the first time since Yuri met her. It's not okay, he knows, but it can be, and he knows that this isn't the last he'll be seeing of Flynn's mysterious Estellise.

He's proven correct when a few days later at eight-thirty sharp he gets a text message from an unknown number.

_Good morning, Yuri!_ It writes. _How are you today? :D_

From his bed, Yuri grins crookedly and types out a reply before flopping over to go back to sleep.

_Morning, Estelle. I'm alright, how're you?_

* * *

Yuri meets Estelle from his jail cell after he's been arrested for breaking into her house. It would have been fine if not for the security system. It would have also been fine if not for the guards. Who even had guards these days?

Estellise Sidos Heurassein does, apparently.

Yuri didn't do it for much, just enough to keep him from freezing at night and to keep the numb feeling of nothing from sinking into his bones to make a home. Stealing puts a bad taste in his mouth but it's better than dying and he's getting better at it. He doesn't _want_ to be better at it but it beats lying dead on the streets, another nameless face to be dealt with by the put upon cleanup crew.

It's five years ago to the day that Yuri's parents died, and it only took a year and a half for Yuri to weary of being bounced from home to home, family to family. Now a scrawny and underfed thirteen, he's had enough.

Yuri sits down in his cell and pulls his knees up, wraps his arms around them, and drops his head. He's done, he's had enough.

Stop the ride, he wants to get off. He wants to wake up.

The opening of the door catches his attention but he doesn't look. Showing that he's watching just leads to pain and people can make Yuri do a lot of things –steal and lie and cheat- but they can't make him watch.

A hand comes down on dark, uncropped hair. It's gentle and not the blow that Yuri was expecting.

"Someone said that your name was Yuri."

The voice is soft and quiet and female and Yuri forces down the instinctual twitch of his muscles when that hand moves, smoothing over his hair and trailing down his jaw. She can't make him, he thinks mutinously. She can't make him talk and she can't make him listen and she _can't make him watch_.

"You answer when Miss Estellise talks to you, urchin—"

"Quiet, Leblanc," the soft voice goes sharp and Leblanc (the noisy, beefy dude who nabbed Yuri I the first place) goes silent.

Yuri can't help but cheer, not a little bit vindictively, on the inside.

So there.

The lady (Miss Estellise, he thinks, not that it matters) doesn't say anything else but she also doesn't take her hand away. Yuri squirms with discomfort. This is new. He's used to being yelled at and cuffed about and he doesn't know what to do with this at all, not with quiet voices and quiet movements.

It's like she's trying to not scare off a stray cat and Yuri almost laughs. He's not a cat but he is a stray and he doesn't need anyone to help him. He doesn't.

"Yuri?"

Yuri can't help it—he looks.

Miss Estellise is a young woman with kindly green eyes and pink hair cut short around her ears. That pink hair is suffering from intense bedhead and she's half in pajamas and half in jeans. Yuri doesn't want to look at her at all. She kneels down on the floor next to him, one hand in his hair and the other hovering undecidedly around his shoulder.

"What do you want?" Yuri asks resentfully and her eyebrows furrow.

"What I'd really like to know is why you needed to break into my house. What did _you_ want?"

Yuri flinches.

He didn't want her stereo system or her tv or the art on the walls.

Yuri keeps his mouth shut.

"You—"

"_Hush_," Estellise demands of Leblanc, sounding a little exasperated, and turns back to Yuri. "Listen, there's no need to be afraid. Tell me, please?" Yuri bristles. He's heard stuff like that before and it's always big fat lies. Always, always. "Yuri?"

"It's gettin' cold," Yuri mumbles and looks away. He's past the point of being embarrassed for doing what he has to to survive but god, it's hard to remember that when he's face to face with someone who's never lacked for anything. Yuri used to be like that too and he hates her a little bit for it. "You gonna lock me up?"

He always knew that this would happen, always knew how it would end. The little dreams he had of becoming the greatest thief to ever live, to be famous, to make things right, were never for him even though they were nice. Yuri knew this would happen, realistic as he was; he just thought that it would happen a little later in life is all. He's not surprised, he silently insists, he can't be surprised by something he saw coming.

To his horror, Yuri realizes that he trembling not from cold, but from fear.

He doesn't want to go to jail.

He just wants to go home but home doesn't exist anymore and he doesn't know what to do or where to go.

And then Miss Estellise is coming closer to wrap that undecided hand around him to tug him into a firm hug. Yuri resists and stiffens and shakes helpless in her grip until she begins to speak.

"No, Yuri." She tells him, "You're not going to be locked up. I can promise you that."

"How?!" Yuri bursts out, voice sharp and high with terror and anger and why-won't-she-understand.

"Because I'm not pressing charges against you—" Yuri goes wobbly and weak in the knees and feels kind of like he's going to throw up. "And you'll be coming home with me tonight. We'll figure out what to do a little later but I'll make sure that you're safe." Stunned, Yuri peers out from underneath his bangs to watch Leblanc go an amazing combination of red and pale to the point that he looks like a bullfrog about to croak. "Leblanc."

He straightens.

"Yes, Miss Estellise?"

"Run up the paperwork, if you don't mind. My parents were in the system records for years before they passed as emergency contacts, it shouldn't be too difficult for you. Please make it work."

The man does as she says with a short salute and turns away.

"Do I get a choice at all?" Yuri asks suddenly and Estellise pulls away. He gets to see her face fall briefly and then soften.

"Well…yes," she replies, "Of course you do. What would you prefer?"

And that's what makes up Yuri's mind because no one's ever asked. Everyone tells or orders or assumes but no one's ever just _asked_.

"I'll go with you," Yuri says.

It's all very simple after that, or it seems to be. All Yuri has to do is sign a few papers and sit quietly, and it all goes very fast. He thinks that probably just want to get rid of him. Everyone else did. Before Yuri knows it and has a chance to settle into those kinds of thoughts, he's being trundled into a waiting car.

He finds out that Miss Estellise is twenty-three years old and double-majoring at the local university in history and creative writing. He finds out that she plays the flute (badly) and the violin (not as badly). He finds out that her parents died in a car crash when she was twelve and it was only because she was at home with a fever that she didn't join them. He finds out that Leblanc (head of the guard and the occasional driver) has been around since before she was born and that for all his bluster is actually a very good man.

Theoretically.

Yuri still hates his guts.

Yuri doesn't say much of the ride back, just listens and tries to not bask in the warmth he can't count on for longer than he can see. He lets himself be shown where he'll be sleeping and where the bathroom is and he doesn't sleep the whole night.

At least, he doesn't think he does until he jerks awake to sounds permeating the house. He peers into the kitchen and sees Miss Estellise frantically scarfing down a bowl of cereal, her book bag on the chair next to her. She's got a sheaf of papers in her hands and Yuri doesn't know if it's for school or what but he forgets about it when Estellise sees him and her frazzled expression melts into a grin.

Yuri's never believed in fairy tales even before everything fell apart, never found himself mesmerized by knights and kings and dragons, princess and magic, saving the world. But for just a moment, he lets himself think about how, in another world, she could be a princess and Yuri Lowell lets himself wish (just for a moment) that he could be her knight.

* * *

Yuri meets Estelle at Flynn's funeral; she cries the whole time and Yuri holds her hand even though he's never met her before. He doesn't know how it happens, either; one moment he's sitting next to her on the pew and the next her hand is clutched tightly in his and it takes him a moment to realize that she's holding onto him just as tightly, white-knuckled.

He feels raw and empty and like he's been raked bare-backed over coals. Flynn's the one constant he ever had—annoying and tight-handed and bad tempered and now he's gone, and Yuri doesn't know quite what to do with himself. At Estelle's other side is another girl, tall and slim and queenly, and Yuri wonders how Flynn managed to keep knowing so many girls a secret from him.

It's morbid and sobering and Yuri will never know. Flynn will never be able to tell him.

Yuri squeezes the hand wrapped in his at the thought.

He doesn't know that this span of several hours filled with grief and darkness and pain are going to change his life. He doesn't know that by the end of the ceremony, he'll have traded phone numbers with Estellise (Estelle after today, never anything else) and Judy, her friend. Yuri doesn't know that he won't be sleeping tonight at all, that he'll be awake in an empty apartment that used to house a roommate, that at three-thirteen exactly he'll be awake to receive a phone call from Judy, who'll tell him that Estelle needs to talk to him.

She doesn't want to but she needs to, she says, because Yuri's her only connection right now to Flynn and Judy can't help her. It's selfish, she continues, and Yuri can hear a voice in the background protesting vehemently that it's fine to hang up, to not bother him so later. That's what convinces Yuri to take the call and not hang up, and he hears Judy force the telephone into Estelle's reluctant hands.

"I'm sorry, she shouldn't have called you," is the first thing out of her mouth.

"It's fine," Yuri says, "Sleep wasn't happening anyway."

They fall into silence, then, and then Estelle asks,

"How long have you known Flynn?"

And Yuri talks. It's one of the longest conversations he's ever had with anybody, much less somebody he met just that day under the worst of circumstances. He tells her about the Flynn he knows until his throat goes hoarse and his words run dry and then Estelle takes over where he left off.

She talks about the Flynn she knows that Yuri knows some of too, off the sweetness that ran close to his bones and his good humor but bad temper and how he was always grouchy in the mornings, and how he couldn't stand it when towels were left on the floor.

Yuri had had doubts at first that she had been Flynn's girlfriend but that one statement blows all of them out of the water. There's no way in hell that she wasn't, not the way Estelle talks about him.

The two of them talk until the sun comes up and his battery's in the red. Estelle's half asleep and Yuri can almost picture her, hazy and sleep-mussed and splayed out in bed. That's the image he keeps in his head when he hangs up the phone.

They meet in a coffee shop five days later even though they've spoken on the phone every night since then. Yuri's not sleeping much and he can't even consider getting a new roommate. He wants to move out but he hasn't been able to touch any of Flynn's things, and he hates the idea of being alone. He's kind of afraid, if he has to admit it.

To move anything, to give anything away, to throw anything out… it feels like defeat. It feels like giving up and Yuri Lowell doesn't give up. He knows that Flynn's gone but a part of him can't accept it. He can't make himself or let himself accept it.

So he calls Estelle or she calls him because she's not sleeping either. She's the only one who even comes close to knowing how he feels or feeling how he feels. Any port in a storm goes the saying, and _oh_ is it a storm. Every night they've talked until morning or close enough to it and Estelle tends to fall asleep on the phone. Judith ends the call for her, giving Yuri a serene goodnight before she hangs up even if it's six in the morning.

In the coffee shop is the first time that Estelle admits outright that she and Flynn were in a relationship. She says (with a pained and unhappy smile) that she doesn't know how serious it was for him, and that's the biggest lie that Yuri's ever heard in his life. The lie's obvious in Estelle and he knows Flynn. Flynn didn't do casual relationships; it was serious or nothing and Yuri says so, and Estelle chugs her mocha even though it burns.

The next time they meet is in a bar.

It's kind of shady and Yuri didn't _mean_ to pick a shady bar but it's one he's used to and feels safe in. Estelle doesn't protest or seem to mind as she orders her drink, something amber and potent that he's pretty sure she doesn't really enjoy.

Yuri's had two by the time she finishes her first and he doesn't remember what she says, but it's enough to make him set down his glass and kiss her hard.

He doesn't have half a second to think before Estelle kisses him back, twining an arm around his neck and slowly edging off her stool until she's seated firmly in his lap. He drinks her in and she tastes like whiskey, and he can't tell whether it's her or him. Somehow they get back to Yuri's apartment and fall into his bed in a tangle of limbs, shed clothing, and panels of skin. It's the first time in what feels like forever that Yuri feels even remotely alive and he wants to drown in her because she sets his head and heart and body on fire.

He should feel bad, probably, he thinks later. Estelle's curled around him, half-asleep and nuzzling one of the bruises she sucked into the delicate skin of his throat, and Yuri's got his arm slung over her shoulders.

He should feel bad, he amends, but he doesn't.

What does that say about him, that he's sleeping with his dead best friend's girl and doesn't even feel bad about it? What does that say about him or about Estelle, because she's the one sleeping with _him_? He can't make himself feel that it says anything even remotely bad about either of them.

He's so lonely and needs something to not make him feel so numb.

She's lonely too and there's nothing wrong with that.

Yuri pulls her close and kisses her again like he'll never get another breath of air, and they stay in bed all day.

Sometimes, a while later, Yuri wonders if this is entirely healthy, moral questions aside. He wonders if sometimes he's using Estelle because he'll never get Flynn back and what _that_ says, and sometimes he feels guilty for it. It never stops him from dialing or picking up the phone and they talk almost every night. There's a moment of stilted, awkward silence three weeks into it when the conversation turns to something that isn't Flynn or connected with him but Estelle picks up Yuri's slack as if he'd never dropped the ball in the first place.

That's the moment where things change and it stops being all about grief and coping and thrown life preservers. They still meet at coffee shops and bars but Yuri asks her out to dinner too and sometimes they go to Estelle's place instead of his.

Yuri doesn't tell anyone about it but he's pretty sure that Estelle's roommates know. Judy seems a hard person to pull the wool over on and Rita's no slouch herself, not with that overprotective streak of hers. So he's positive that they know.

One night when they're in bed together four months later, Estelle offers to swing by while Yuri's at work and start going through some of Flynn's things. It's time, she says, and Yuri goes stiff and unhappy. Yuri hasn't touched anything since he died and he wants to be mad like he would have been months ago, but the feelings won't come. He just lets her draw him in and the next morning he gets a spare key made to give to her.

That's a step forward and some nights, Estelle brings dinner over. Sometimes she spends all day and evening in Flynn's room and all Yuri will see or hear of her is a sniff or a sob until she slips into his bed. Sometimes Yuri helps her sort through the things that hurt him to look at, especially when Estelle can't bring herself to pick them up. The photos are the worst and Yuri boxes them all up one day when she's not there and puts them away.

The span of two hours in a dimly lit church turns into a week, into a month, into a year. Yuri moves into a new apartment and takes the photos with him. He gives Estelle a key to that one too, and she still comes over even when there's nothing to go through except for Yuri's own things. She ends up with a toothbrush at his place and Yuri forgets a shirt or two at hers and sometimes, he watches movies over there because the three girls have pitched in for a good TV and Judy smirks when their hands find one another in the middle of it.

"Do you think," Estelle asks one night, "That Flynn would be upset?"

Yuri's thought about that for a very long time but they've never actually talked about it ever, and for a good while Yuri stays silent and considering.

"Flynn was a very good man," he says eventually, "He was an asshole but he was always good. He was also unselfish. I think he would have been more upset about you being unhappy without him than being happy with someone else." And that's the first that Yuri's ever brought up happiness either. Despite it all, he's something like happy with her. "I hope that he would wish the same for me. Can you…are you happy with me, Estelle?" He swallows hard and waits.

Because this started out based in pain and need and that pain's been replaced with something else. Yuri won't call it love, not yet—love is hard and this is easy, but it could be someday and he wants to be there when it happens.

Estelle chews on her lips, hooks her ankle over his, and traces patterns with her fingers into his hip.

"Yes," she breathes, making them true with a kiss that burns hot like a brand, and Yuri lets himself drown.

* * *

Yuri meets Estelle when he's on the ground and bleeding from his nose and eyebrow. He's dazed and disoriented but he still watches as the girl he's defending beats off their attackers with her bright yellow umbrella. It was supposed to rain that day.

Fuck, this sucks.

This is the actual worst.

Yuri stops himself from thinking _at least it's not raining_ because no, because his luck is just that terrible and the last thing he needs is to be bleeding all over the street in the rain. God. His luck. _His fucking luck_.

The girl he thought he was defending, who didn't give any indication of ability to defend herself until one of them laid a hand on Yuri, shakes her fist as the men run off and Yuri resists the urge to drown himself in the gutter. She kneels down and closes her umbrella with a quiet shuck.

"Excuse me, I'm so…ohmigosh, I'm so sorry, you're bleeding, I'm sorry—" and then her hands are on him, tilting his face up and examining the gash on his head, checking his pupils. Yuri wants to bat her away but his vision swims and maybe this is one of those times where he's better served doing what he's told instead of playing the hero, as Flynn likes to remind him.

Feh, like Flynn has _any_ room to talk about playing hero.

Jesus Christ, the man's as close to a knight in shining armor as anyone could possibly get. Rescues cats from trees, returns crying kids to their mothers, makes sure wallets make their way back to the proper authorities. Flynn's a hero, Yuri's…something else entirely. Flynn returns the cat, Yuri cuts down the tree.

"Are you a doctor?" Yuri asks when she digs into her bag to pull out a white pouch.

"What?" she asks, startled, "Oh, no. I mean, I'm a little accident-prone and my roommate's a klutz so I know a lot of first aid, and…no, sorry, I'm no doctor. Just a bit of an egghead is all." She takes a closer look at his head, fingertips gentle. This is fucking ridiculous.

"It's fine," Yuri says and shrugs his way out of her grip, "No big. Just…next time, maybe you should think about yourself first, yeah?" He's not mad at her so much as he is at himself. How out of shape is he that he can let this happen? Time was that every thug worth his salt knew to avoid Yuri.

Going straight and narrow's killed his rep a bit but Yuri doesn't want to go back to what things were before.

Yeah, he didn't have any trouble with the local goons but he wouldn't give up central heating and eating regularly and having a job for that. Yuri's record was sealed when he turned eighteen; that's enough for him.

"It's not fine!" Estelle protests and grabs his sleeve, "You could be concussed! At the very least, that cut's not going to stop bleeding without some help." She digs around in her bag again and pulls out a handkerchief. Yuri doesn't want to take it; the stains'll never come out, but she ignores his hands and presses it insistently to his face. "I live a block away; come back with me and I'll fix you up. It's the least I can do for getting you into this in the first place."

Yuri can't really argue with that—it's let her patch him up or try and get back to the place he and Flynn share and possibly drip blood on the carpet. He's not risking that one.

Estelle's apartment is small, like most of the places around here, and it contrasts starkly with the way she speaks and holds herself. What the hell's some kind of rich girl doing here? Yuri has no reason to not ask and he does as Estelle drops her umbrella into the basket by the door. She smiles crookedly and twists her hands.

"Obvious?"

Clearly.

"Let's just say that a year back, I had my eyes opened for me," she says and bustles Yuri into the bathroom. "Sit there." Yuri sits where she points on the closed toilet. "It was a nightmare, court cases, family feuds, a few prison sentences. The people responsible ended up in jail and I ended up running away. I met my roommates and have been figuring things out ever since." And that's where she stops and Yuri doesn't push it. He's got some skeletons too and he knows how tightly he needs to keep the door locked.

Estelle gathers up a roll of bandages and a set of butterfly stitches and a small bottle of bactine, lining them up on the side of the tub.

The antibacterial stings and she applies the stitches with the kind of ease that proves her words from earlier—not a doctor but used to taking care of the basics. Yuri is too and could put them on himself, but Estelle seems like the kind of person who wouldn't accept that.

"This is going to seem weird, but can I ask you something?"

Yuri raises an eyebrow.

"Don't know if there's much hope of you being anything other than weird at this point," he says. "Shoot."

Estelle puts all the things back into the medicine cabinet before continuing. Yuri should get up and go home, he's got no reason to stay…but he's curious, and curiosity's always been his curse.

"Have you ever had a dream so real that you woke up and wondered why you were still dreaming?"

Yuri stares and she barrels on.

"I have dreams like that a lot. I wake up and I think, why am I sleeping? The world feels wrong. It's all wrong."

That's just life, Yuri thinks, and says so. The world's wrong and it's best to get used to it, and she's luckier than most that she's only finding this out now. He says that too and she shakes her head, eyebrows furrowing like she's frustrated.

"No, it's more than that."

Estelle wrings her hands and lifts her head to look him in the eyes.

"I dreamed you, Yuri Lowell. We saved the world."

She's crazy. The kid's crazy.

…Except that Yuri never told her his last name.

"We saved the world and this is wrong. _Wake up_!" She shakes him by the shoulders, hard, and she suddenly looks different. Harder and sharper and where did the helpless little girl go? "You need to remember, Yuri, I don't know how many more times—"

"You're nuts!" Yuri pushes her away and lurches to his feet, fully intending on leaving and never looking back. "I've got enough crazy, I don't need yours too! Just—just stop. Just stop. I'm leaving," he says, "So help me if I ever see you again, you'll wish I hadn't." Yuri's afraid and he doesn't know why.

He's afraid and he has to go.

For some reason, this only makes her swing closer and dig her fingers into the fabric of his top.

"Every time," she grits out, "Every time we end up forgetting and _I_ remember first. You're the last, Yuri, everyone's waiting for you! You need to wake up! Please!"

Yuri reaches blindly and grabs the plunger by the toiler and it's too comfortable in his hands. He's never held a sword in his life. It shouldn't feel familiar.

But more than feeling familiar is the feeling that it's wrong to be pointing any sort of weapon at Estelle, even if it's just a plunger.

"You need to remember," Estelle demands and Yuri insists he doesn't know her even as part of his brain screams that it's wrong for her to sound so harsh.

The world swims and Yuri drops his plunger.

The illusion shatters.

* * *

Yuri wakes up on stone. It's cold, he realizes. The whole place is cold to the point where there should be frost indoors if not for the dank and the drip. Where is he? His brain feels like puzzle pieces that contradict and don't fit. One puzzle and a thousand outcomes.

A thousand restarts and a thousand wasted lives that he remembers but can't claim.

There are multiple pairs of hands on him and Yuri opens his eyes, disoriented, but is instantly slammed with memories he can't explain. It couldn't ever be real, because there's no such thing as a motorcycle even though he very distinctly remembers killing Estelle's dog (Ioder, he thinks with growing horror) while riding it. But that can't be right either, because he remembers being thirteen and being taken in off the streets by her. He remembers Flynn's funeral with a sick, sinking feeling, but how can that be right when he's here right now?

Yuri wants to throw up.

"I don't—" he stammers, "Get away, you're not—I don't know—"

He doesn't know anything. Is this even real? Yuri can't tell. He's clutching something in his hand and a part of him expects to see a plunger. It's his sword instead.

"It's okay, Yuri, it's okay—" _That _ voice is familiar to his ears and Yuri forces himself to try and calm. A thousand lives and not once has that voice betrayed him. She's been stupid, she's been broken; she's been naïve and steel-strong and older, better and worse. But she's never once betrayed him. "Back off a little, this is the hard part. Yuri?" she asks and Yuri looks. "You need to breathe, I know it's hard and you're confused, but you need to breathe. He's been in there the longest; there's the most to put back, it'll take him some time. It's okay, you're not crazy. Just give it a bit."

Yuri rubs his head and sits up.

Everyone's there, Flynn who's alive here and dead somewhere else, and the memories of that hit him and he reaches out blinding to grip his arm with shaking fingers.

"What the _fuck_," he mumbles hazily, "Who put my brain in the blender?"

Except that there aren't blenders here. No cars, no blenders, no motorcycles. Yuri shakes his head again as if to clear it.

"What happened?"

That's the million dollar question. Rita, who's on the ground with him and rocking back on her heels takes that one with a grimace, rubbing at her head like it hurts. Yuri can empathize.

"Some peabrain was messing around with aer, trying to recreate blastia," she snaps, "I can't tell what he did but…well, the memories are still hazy. Have I mentioned how much I hate this? But we went and tried to stop him and he whammied us hard. Died in the process, good riddance—" Yuri agrees, "But it made us all forget and restart. Can't really say more than that without sitting down to study it." And she will study it, that's a promise, study it so that it can't ever happen again.

Yuri wonders what she remembers because she's pale and shaky. Yuri remembers other versions of her too that he didn't like as much as this one and he wonders if she remembers him. _How_ she remembers him.

Yuri must have been reset at least a thousand times to be this close to incoherency. He's tired and all he wants to do is sleep but he staggers to his feet. Raven's already standing, one hand tucked into his jacket, clearly paranoid and jumpy. Karol's hovering next to him and Yuri hasn't seen him look that young in years. Even Judy's lacking her usual calm; normally serene violet eyes white around the edges.

And then there's Estelle who he can't see because she's pressed against his back.

"Are you—"

"Please don't ask me if I'm okay," she says shakily, "I don't want to lie to you."

"You could always just tell the truth," Yuri says and she drops her head into the nape of his neck. It's not like her to be this touchy-feely. Squishy, yes, and always open to hugs, but clingy? That's not normal.

"What should I say?" she asks, voice muffled in his hair like she doesn't care that this is a private conversation in public. Yuri doesn't care either. He's spent what feels like forever without all of the people who make him whole, he's not letting them out of his sight for a good long while. They can deal. Somehow, he doesn't think that they'll mind. "I don't know why but I always remembered. Sometimes it took longer than others but I always remembered, and it always reset again before I could tell you. Every time. I don't know why, but I always remembered and you always forgot. I just knew that I had to get you out. This is partly my fault."

What?

Estelle continues without him having to ask.

"After I remembered remembering, I don't know how but I found a way to make it reset myself. Every time I failed, every time you couldn't believe me. I still forgot every time but I remembered remembering eventually. I couldn't just leave you there." Her voice begs him to believe her. "I don't know how many times I had to do it. I'm so sorry, Yuri. I'm so sorry."

Yuri feels like he got punched in the chest and it makes sense, _it makes sense_. At least something does. No one gets left behind, every Yuri he remembers tells him firmly. No one. He'd have done the same. He tells her so and Estelle sags against him, slack and heavy.

Yuri can't forgive her because there's nothing to forgive, and he leans back against her until the shakes subside and Flynn holds out his hand.

"Feel up to standing?"

"You're carrying me out before I stay in this godforsaken place a second longer," Yuri snarls and takes the offered hand. The walk out is silent and long but the sunshine feels good. Yuri feels something like a puzzle piece click into place in his head.

A thousand lives and they've all been different but some things have always been the same. He wants to know why some lives were shared and others weren't, what demons his friends had to fight, who had to die. He wants to know but he doesn't. It's too much when he can't quite tell what's now and what's not.

Yuri keeps his mouth shut and keeps walking. He's different, they all are. They've been unmade and remade and there's no coming back from that.

Yuri gets that when he doesn't really get anything else, and when a hand he knows slots in his, it's instinct he listens to that lets him hold it without thinking.

* * *

AN2: Thank you so much for reading! If you have anything at all to say, I'd love to hear what you think in either a comment or a pm. I love talking to people and I do take feedback into consideration, so don't be shy! See you next time~


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